Merlispn
by Without-A-Muse
Summary: Arthur and Merlin get dropped into downtown Boston, with no clue as to how they got there. Dean and Sam have just been told by Chuck to go to Boston, with no explanation of why. The four men meet and chaos insues. crack!fic
1. Chapter 1

Sam didn't understand why they were in Boston. Yes, all right, Chuck had phoned Dean and told them they needed to be there, but he hadn't exactly been forthcoming with the details. Sam had spent the last eight hours sitting in the Impala and scouring the newspapers for demonic omens, suspicious deaths, _anything_, but his eyes were crossing and he still hadn't found any sign of what to expect.

"Are you sure Chuck didn't say anything about _why_ we're supposed to be here?" he asked for the fifth time as they approached the city's limits. "A hint? Something we're supposed to do that turns out to be important later?"

Dean's impatience was audible in his voice. "Yes, I'm sure. He said to get our asses to Boston, and here we are." Dean cranked up the music, obviously hoping that Metallica would shut Sam up.

"But we don't even know what we're looking for!" Sam said, tossing the newspapers aside. Dean's eyes were pinned on the road ahead of them, knuckles tight on the wheel.

"Sam, the guy's writing our life story. Listening to him is not the worst idea we've ever had." Dean glanced over at him for a second before turning his attention back to the road.

"It's just… Chuck's never really told us to go and do anything before, never warned us about anything. What's so different about this?" Sam looked out at the Boston skyline visible across the bridge. "And why can't he tell us about it?"

"Sam. Drop it." Dean had learned that voice from Dad, Sam was sure of it. It was the voice that meant, _if you don't stop asking fool questions, boy, you'll be walking._ Sam huffed a sigh and slid down in his seat. Waiting. He _hated_ waiting.

Arthur Pendragon, crown prince and heir to the throne of Camelot, had absolutely no idea where he was.

"Merlin," he said slowly, "what in God's name have you done this time?" Merlin garbled back something about how he didn't know where they were or how they got there, but it most definitely wasn't his fault. He also muttered something mildly insubordinate about Arthur assuming everything was his fault, just because that _one time _with the rabbit_–_ but Arthur had stopped listening.

He had never, in all his life, seen a place like this. Moving wagons with no horses roared past them, growling and spitting smoke like dragons, but none of the people inside them seemed to notice or care. Instead of the familiar feel of grass and earth beneath his feet, a hard white rock covered the ground in squares where they stood, bordering the darker rock road where the metal wagons rumbled. Tall castle-like structures were everywhere, looming over their heads twice as high as Camelot's tallest tower and shining like polished armor. He could barely see the sky.

There was nothing remotely familiar here, nothing to ground himself with, and Arthur could feel the waves of panic lapping at the edges of his mind. None of his father's training applied here. There was no way to know what was dangerous and what wasn't, no way to track down the evil thing and kill it. He didn't know what to do.

"Arthur? Are you all right?"

Arthur turned. Merlin. Merlin, he knew– the mop of black hair, the ridiculously over-sized ears, the way his forehead scrunched and his head tilted slightly to the side when, as now, he was staring at Arthur in concern. Arthur met Merlin's eyes, which seemed even bluer against the harsh grey background they'd found themselves in, and squared his shoulders.

"I'm fine, Merlin, stop fussing like an old woman," he said, giving Merlin a friendly shove and settling his other hand on his sword. He wouldn't let Merlin down.

Sam was still brooding when they pulled into the parking lot of the Mariott Hotel. Dean rolled his eyes and thwacked his brother's arm. "Here you are, princess," he said. "Home sweet home."

Pushing himself up in his seat, Sam eyed the hotel, looking confused. "Uh, Dean? Are you sure we're at the right place?"

"You wanna sleep in the backseat, be my guest," Dean said as he turned off the Impala and opened the door.

"It's just– this isn't exactly a disco-themed motel in backwater Mississippi, Dean," Sam said. "This place is... nice."

_Normal_, Dean heard. _Not like us._ "Yeah, well, maybe I wanted a change in scenery," he said. "Maybe I'm tired of sleeping under sheets that were washed who knows how long ago, or dealing with unidentifiable black goop every time I wanna take a shower." He grabbed his duffel from the trunk and swung it over his shoulder.

Sam raised his hands in a gesture of conciliation. "Alright. Alright. Change of scenery. Fine by me." He pulled out his own bag and closed the trunk with a snap, following Dean into the first respectable hotel they had been to since…well, in a long time.

It just figured, Dean thought. Sam always complained about the motels they stayed in– the suspicious stains on the mattress, the cockroaches in the walls, the bizarre mishmash of decorations. Kid couldn't even appreciate the hilariousness of a mermaid lamp with a cowboy hat for a lampshade. Now here they were, finally staying at someplace that'd live up to Sammy's delicate sensibilities, and he was making a bitchface about it.

Dean hadn't told Sam that this particular hotel was another one of Chuck's instructions. That would just have worried him even more, and Dean had enough trouble dealing with inquisitive-Sam without worried-Sam nattering away in that earnest voice of his. Dean figured he was worrying enough for both of them, anyway.

He pushed open the front door of the hotel. The lobby was dim compared to the bright sun outside, and Dean rubbed a hand over his eyes. Damn, he was tired. He was always tired these days. Still, he pulled out a cocky smile for the girl at the front desk, adding a little swagger to his step.

"Hey there–" he glanced at her name tag– "Marcia. Two queens, please."

"Certainly," she smiled, and Dean wondered if it would be worth the effort to sweet-talk her. He wondered what sort of porn they got in these kinds of hotels. Upscale hotels had upscale porn, right? Then again, porn was porn, whichever way you looked at it.

"There you are, sir," said Marcia, and she handed him two key cards. Dean turned to give one to Sam... but Sam wasn't there.

"Sam?" he called, gripping the handle of his duffel bag and scanning the lobby. He saw Sam's bag lying in the middle of the polished floor, and the tightness in his chest ratcheted up another notch. Before he could go into full-on panic mode, though, he saw a tall figure with a plaid shirt and shaggy brown hair hurrying across the busy street outside. That _bitch_.

Dean picked up Sam's bag and shoved both duffels and a twenty-dollar bill into the hands of a gangly teenager wearing a red bellhop costume. "Room 508, and don't open them," he ordered as the boy staggered under the weight. He didn't wait for the boy's terrified nod before he hightailed it out the door toward his brother.

Sam had only intended a quick run back to the Impala. He had forgotten the bag of dirty clothes that he and Dean kept separate for washing, a policy he had instituted a few months after he and Dean had started hunting together again. There was only so much blood and sweat on his clean clothes that he was willing to deal with, and now that they each had a set of actual nice clothes, he refused to shove everything into the same duffel. Fortunately, Dean had only shrugged and told him to do whatever the hell he wanted.

Closing the lid to the Impala's trunk, Sam looked up and frowned. Two men across the street caught his attention, one dark-haired and one blond, both standing unusually still in the swirl of businessmen and tourists. Something about them seemed... off. Their clothes, for one thing– oddly dressed people weren't uncommon in a large city like Boston, but these two both looked as if they had gotten lost on their way to a Renaissance Fair. LARPers, Sam thought, but their darted glances at the people going past them were less social awkwardness and more like barely-restrained panic. And– did the blond one have a _sword?_

Sam made his way across the street, the bag of dirty laundry still clutched in his hand, dodging the midday chaos of Boston traffic. His mind briefly flickered to Dean, busy checking them into the hotel several feet away, but Sam shook his head and kept his eyes on the two strangers. He would phone Dean as soon as he could. Besides, Dean had probably already either collapsed on the bed in exhaustion or was checking out the quality of the hotel porn, and therefore unlikely to notice how long Sam was taking. Sam pushed through the crowd, determined to figure out why these two strangers seemed so drastically out of place.

"Arthur, we need to ask someone for help,"said Merlin. His head hurt from the chaotic noise surrounding them, and something like a humming sound in the back of his mind kept bothering him, drifting in and out of his hearing range.

"We don't know if it's safe," Arthur said tightly, and Merlin pursed his lips. True, neither of them knew where they were, but standing on this strange street corner and glaring wasn't going to help them find out, and Merlin was sure that his magic could take on whatever might threaten them. A metal wagon made a blaring noise next to him and Merlin jumped. _Mostly _sure.

"You guys lost or something?" a voice asked from behind them.

Merlin and Arthur turned around simultaneously. The man standing there was taller than both of them, his shoulders broader even than Arthur's, but he had warm hazel eyes and a crooked grin on his face. His shirt was rumpled, and had a strange pattern of squares on it. Merlin squinted at him. Was this man a sorcerer?

"We are not lost," Arthur said, stepping slightly in front of Merlin and jutting his chin out, ever the stubborn prince.

"Actually–" Merlin piped up, but Arthur grabbed his elbow.

"We don't know who this man is," Arthur said in a quiet rush against Merlin's ear. "For all we know, he's the one who sent us here."

"He might be able to help," Merlin protested.

Even though Merlin had whispered and they were in a loud, crowded space, the stranger managed to hear what he had said. "Your friend's right," he said to Arthur. "I could help. You look like something weird happened to you, and..." He laughed, shrugging those wide shoulders. "I'm kind of an expert in weird."

Before Merlin could answer, a voice down the street yelled "_Sam!" _and the stranger turned, a guilty look on his face. A shorter man with spiky hair drew up beside him, looking furious.

"What the hell, Sammy? Jesus, I leave you alone for two seconds and you go wandering off by yourself? How do you know _that's_ not what goes wrong in Boston, huh?"

Merlin watched the exchange. The man with spiky hair was obviously angry, but beneath that he could see something similar to fear. It was almost the way his mother had looked at him when she sent him away from Ealdor: protective but unable to protect.

"You can't even _call_ me before you–" The man broke off, noticing Merlin for the first time. "Who the hell are these freaks?"

Merlin stepped around from behind Arthur. "Look, we are lost," he said. Let Arthur keep his pride; Merlin just wanted to go home. "Could you tell us where we are?"

The taller man smiled kindly. "This is Boston, Massachusetts."

Merlin had known that they weren't anywhere near Camelot anymore, but hearing it said, the words hanging in the air between them, caused his stomach to clench. He'd never heard of Bostonmassachusetts, not even in the old history books in the back of Camelot's libraries, and he had no idea how far they were from home. He looked at Arthur, who stopped glaring at the spiky-haired man long enough to exchange a worried glance.

"I'm Sam, by the way," said the first man. "This is my brother Dean."

Dean snorted. "Dude, you don't have to introduce yourself to every whack job on the Eastern Seaboard."

Merlin saw Arthur's eyes narrow, and he put a warning hand on the prince's elbow. "I'm Merlin," he said. "This is Arthur–"

"Prince Arthur," Arthur corrected imperiously, staring at Dean as though daring him to contradict him. Merlin sighed.

"All right, _Prince_ Arthur."

Sam and Dean gave each other a look that Merlin couldn't interpret. He put that aside, and asked the question he had been burning to know.

"How long will it take us to get back to Camelot?"


	2. Chapter 2

Sam liked to think he was used to weirdness. It came with being a Winchester, really– when as a child he complained about the monsters in his closet, his father's only reassurance was to hand him a .45 and instruct him to aim a little low and to the left. Ghosts and monsters were everyday life to Sam. He was practically an authority on weird. So when this blue-eyed stranger calling himself Merlin asked about getting back to Camelot, Sam should not have gotten lightheaded.

"Did you say _Camelot_?" he asked. He didn't even need to look at Dean to know he was rolling his eyes.

"Have you never heard of it?" Merlin asked, a worried wrinkle forming between his eyes.  
Long hours sprawled in the back seat of the Impala reading Thomas Malory and T.H. White flitted through Sam's mind. "I've... heard of it," he admitted cautiously, wondering exactly how much Merlin and Arthur– _Prince_ Arthur– would be willing to hear, and how much would be wise to tell them. Clearly some of the legends didn't fit their case. This Merlin didn't look any older than Sam, hardly the sort of person to hold the essence of time in his hands and bend it to his will. To be honest, he looked like the sort to have trouble carrying a stack of books across a room.  
"You two are aware that Camelot doesn't exist, right?" Dean said beside him, belligerent as always. "Or did your magical unicorn friends tell you otherwise?"  
"Dean, cut it out," Sam muttered.  
"The last time we saw a unicorn, Arthur shot it," Merlin said helpfully. "But that put a curse on Camelot, and the famine nearly–ouch!" Arthur elbowed Merlin rather sharply in the ribs, hissing something in an undertone. Sam could guess what was being said: _shut up, don't talk to strangers, it's none of their business._ It's what Sam had heard every time the Impala rolled into a new town, and the litany that ran in the back of his mind whenever he'd tried to make a new friend. Merlin set his jaw mulishly but didn't say anything more.  
"You've gotta be shitting me," said Dean. "Camelot? Seriously? You can't even come up with an original name for your made-up fantasy land?"  
Arthur stepped up within half a foot of Dean, his blue eyes angry. "Camelot is a great country, far superior to your Bostonmassachusetts," he said, rolling Boston and Massachusetts together into a single word. "You would do well to remember the strength of our armies before you insult it further."  
"Not. Real," repeated Dean, leaning into Arthur's space with that grim smirk he wore whenever he started a bar fight. Arthur's nostrils flared.  
Sam's eyes flickered behind Arthur to Merlin's face, which had gone pale, his eyes even more prominent on his face, his cheekbones stretching the skin taut. Something in his eyes made Sam think of himself, six years old, realizing that he didn't have a home, not the way the kids at school did. For Sam there was just the backseat of the Impala as it zigzagged across the country, and a string of motel rooms and pre-furnished apartments that they left the same way they'd found them. He imagined what it would be like if that one familiar place and everything else he knew was suddenly torn away from him.  
"Why don't you guys come with us and we'll figure this out, okay?" he said. Dean glared at him– of course– but Sam looked straight at Merlin, whose entire face loosened with relief. Despite Dean's grumbled curses as they led the two back to the hotel, Sam couldn't bring himself to regret the offer.

Sam and Dean seemed eager to shepherd Merlin and Arthur through the large building as quickly as possible, but Merlin couldn't stop staring at the bizarre, elaborate decorations around him. A chandelier not unlike the one in the Great Hall of Camelot dangled above them, but rather than candles, it was hung with strange white globes of steady light. Perhaps magic was commonly used in this country. There certainly could be no explanation but sorcery for the small metal box they entered, which shook and rose and opened again into a long carpeted hallway somewhere completely different. More of the unflickering lights shone down from the ceiling.  
"Room's this way," said Dean, and led them to a door labeled "508." He opened it with a small white square unlike any key Merlin had ever seen, and once all four of them were inside, he locked the door behind them.  
Someone had spilled salt in a line across the doorway– Merlin stepped over it, but thought it best not to mention that it was there. Dean probably wouldn't appreciate housekeeping tips from strangers. The room widened past the doorway, where two beds almost as large as Arthur's sat side by side, both with intricately patterned red quilts. Merlin caught a glimpse of a smaller room adjoining the first, with what appeared to be a small white water pump attached to the wall. Sam opened the curtains, letting in a burst of sunlight. Merlin gaped to see all the towers overlapping each other far into the distance, crowding out the clouds.  
"Okay, first things first." Dean pulled a silver flask from his jacket and held it out toward Arthur. His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Here, have a drink," he said. "Standing outside in that getup, you're probably thirsty."  
Arthur reached for the flask, but Merlin stopped him. Images of Arthur lying unconscious on a beach flashed through his mind, and he noted the way Dean's grip tightened around the neck of the flask when he asked, "What's in it?"  
"It's, uh, it's just water," said Sam from behind him, crossing the room to stand next to Dean. "Look." He grabbed the flask and took a swig, then offered it to Arthur. "Nothing wrong with it. Promise."  
Merlin snatched the flask from Sam's large hand. It didn't seem likely that Sam would drink poisoned water just to trick them, but this was a strange and possibly magical land; he wasn't about to let Arthur take that chance.  
"Merlin," Arthur said, reaching for the flask, but Merlin batted his hand away.  
"How many times do we have to have this argument before you accept that I always win?" said Merlin, and took a sip while Arthur blustered indignantly. He waited, aware that everyone was watching his reaction. The water had a slight metallic tang, but nothing happened for several minutes, and presently Merlin took another swallow. It had been quite hot outside, after all. "It's water," he said, and allowed Arthur to take it.  
"Oh, _thank you_, Merlin, really, I don't know what I'd do without your keen powers of observation," Arthur said. He drank down half the flask in one go, and Dean watched him carefully like he was waiting for something. Merlin looked at Arthur too, but couldn't see anything amiss aside from the sweat darkening the hair at Arthur's temples. Sam, he noticed, looked relieved.  
Arthur wiped his mouth and matched Dean's stare. "So can you help us return to Camelot or not?"  
Sam and Dean exchanged glances. "Here's the thing," Sam began.

"Sammy and I need to have a little talk," said Dean. "Excuse us for a second, won't you?" He gripped his brother's elbow and marched him into the smaller room near the door. Arthur watched them go, frowning.  
"Dean is almost as infuriating as you are, Merlin," he said. "I hope we can trust him."  
"And he's nearly as bossy as you, sire, but we don't have much of a choice," Merlin replied. The ringing in his head hadn't stopped since they had gotten to this strange country, and now that the room was quiet, his headache intensified. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to concentrate on the muffled voices emanating from being the closed door, occasionally punctuated with a thud. Arthur paced the room, but didn't look away from the door to where Sam and Dean were still arguing.  
Suddenly Merlin felt a burst of not-sound, like a bird flapping its wings against the backs of his eyelids. The ringing in his head crystallized into one high, clear note, and Merlin could sense his own magic swirling through his veins, singing something in return, even as his skull pounded like it was about to split open. The noise kept getting louder until even the hands he clapped over his ears couldn't block it out. "Arthur?" Merlin gasped, and then crumpled to the floor.

"What the hell, Sam," Dean said as soon as the bathroom door swung shut behind them. "I did not sign up to baby-sit a couple of dudes who think they came from freakin' Camelot! I just want to waste whatever evil mother Chuck sent us here to deal with and get the hell–"  
Something in the back of his mind clicked. Surely Chuck hadn't called them in for _these_ two. They were crazy, yeah, but they didn't look evil, even if Merlin did tend to stare at everything a little too long. And why were delusions of medieval grandeur their problem, anyhow? But Chuck had been the one to send them to Boston, to a hotel they normally wouldn't have given a second glance, which just happened to be across the street from a guy carrying a sword and his string bean of a body guard, both of whom were looking for _Camelot_. If this was Chuck's fault, Dean was gonna cut that bitch, archangel or not.

"What if _they're_ the reason Chuck sent us here?" Sam said, one step ahead as usual.

"Then Chuck can go die of liver failure!" said Dean. "No way am I wasting my time trying to get Blondie and Dumbo out there back where they came from! We don't even know who they _are._"  
"They're Merlin," Sam replied, "and Arthur. Prince Arthur, apparently, and Merlin doesn't look older than twenty, so that's a bit of a plot twist."  
"Fuck's sake, Sam." Dean slammed his hand down on the sink. "I know this is like your nerdy medieval dream come true, but could you maybe stop _swooning_ over them and help me figure this out? We got no proof they're who they say. Just cause they crossed the salt line and drank holy water doesn't mean they're not dangerous."  
"Dean, there are legends about them, just like everything else we deal with," Sam said, maddeningly calm. "And don't even pretend you didn't read those books when we were kids. You didn't think angels existed either, remember?"  
"Sure, shove that in my face, not like they were so goddamn helpful."

"This location is unexpected," intoned a voice from the shower. Dean jerked backward and knocked the plastic hair dryer from its holder on the wall, which sent a cascade of complimentary body lotions clattering to the tile floor. Sam sniggered.  
"Jesus, Cas," Dean griped as the angel emerged from behind the shower curtain. "We've talked about this."  
"Why are you two in the bathroom together?" asked Castiel, tilting his head.  
"Why are _you_ in the bathroom with us?" Dean shot back. "We didn't tell you we were coming here. Do our rib tattoos have an expiration date or something?"

"It is written that you should be here," Cas said, his blue eyes looking straight into Dean's in his typically unnerving way. "That is why I came. It appears that the Prophet Chuck is meddling with forces that should not be under human control. He has called the Once and Future King before his time."

Dean punched the wall. Next time he saw Chuck Shurley, he was going to wring that bastard's scrawny neck. "Seriously? Seriously, Cas? The guy's fucking with time and he sends us _Prince_ Arthur? What the hell kind of sick joke is this?"

"There's no need to be so dramatic," Cas said. Sam just grinned at him.  
"Don't think I won't kick your ass," Dean told his brother, who managed to ooze smugness without saying a word. "Right. So. We've got once and future douchebag out there, and his little sidekick too, just to make this a real party. What're we supposed to _do_ with them?"

Something flashed across Castiel's face, too quick for Dean to catch, but it held more emotion than he'd ever seen from the angel. "He has a companion?"  
"In most legends, King Arthur and Merlin are nearly inseparable," Sam said. "Arthur's success as a ruler was due in large part to Merlin's magical assistance. It makes sense that they're here together."  
"All right, geek boy, could've just said yes," said Dean, but he was more concerned with the way Castiel's eyes kept flicking to the door behind him. Before Dean could ask what he was looking at, the bathroom door burst open.  
Arthur stood there in a fighter's stance, clearly no novice when it came to using the sword he held in his hand. The way his eyes flashed, Dean could maybe believe that this kid would grow up to be something legendary. "_What did you do to him_?" said Arthur, his voice dangerously even.  
"What?" said Sam, just as Dean said, "Who?"  
Arthur gestured furiously behind him to where Merlin was crouched on the floor, clutching his head. Dean's stomach dropped. That pose, and those whimpers of pain, were all too familiar. "Shit," Dean said.  
"I'll get some aspirin," said Sam, rifling through the medicine bag. Arthur's attention swung to Castiel, who was staring at Merlin, unblinking.  
"Who is that? How did he get here?" said Arthur, raising his sword to point at Cas's throat.

"Hey, easy with the sword," said Dean– that blade was sharp, and the bathroom was pretty cramped with four grown men in it. "I know the guy needs a shave, but trust me, Ladies' Gilette is much more his speed."  
"That doesn't answer my question." Arthur didn't lower his sword. Dean couldn't exactly blame him– Dean would have kept the Colt pointed at a demon for the exact same reason: because the person he cared about most in his life was hurting, and he wasn't about to let that shit stand.  
"My name is Castiel," Cas said, but his eyes were still fixed on Merlin. "I'm an angel of the Lord."

"You're a sorcerer," said Arthur. "Whatever spell you cast on Merlin, I command you to undo it."  
"You didn't actually mojo him or anything, did you?" Dean asked Cas in an undertone. "Cause I gotta say, you're not really helping things along here."  
"Here it is," Sam said. Arthur turned to glare in Sam's direction, still blocking the doorway, and Sam raised his hands. "Look, I've got some medicine that might help him. I used to get those same sorts of headaches."  
"Not doing him a lot of good standing in this bathroom, either," said Dean. Arthur's jaw clenched, but Sam was doing his earnest face with the puppy eyes, and Dean had seen more than one homicidal monster back down when they got that look. Eventually Arthur stepped back and let them by, though he kept his sword pointed toward Castiel. Sam knelt on the floor next to Merlin and offered him a paper cup of water.  
"Hey, it's okay," he said soothingly. Merlin's eyes were pinched shut, and tears ran down his cheeks, but he didn't flinch away when Sam put a hand on the smaller man's shoulder. "I know your head hurts, but I brought you some medicine, okay? Can you swallow these?"  
Merlin blindly choked down the pills, eyes still closed and his hands covering his ears. The only sound in the room was his shaky breathing. Dean avoided Sam's eyes and hoped that whatever kind of freaky demon vision Merlin was having would pass soon.  
"Merlin Emrys," said Castiel. Merlin unfolded himself and looked up, a mixture of pain and awe on his face. His eyes glowed gold.  
_Shapeshifter_. "Sammy, get away from him!" Dean said, scrabbling for the silver knife in his boot, but Arthur had his sword to Dean's chest before he'd gotten the knife halfway unsheathed.  
"If you touch him, I will run you through," said Arthur. Sam jumped to his feet, pulling a gun from the back of his jeans– _that's my boy_, thought Dean– but Merlin's voice cut through the three-way standoff, his own attention focused entirely on Cas.  
"Who are you?"  
Castiel walked forward until his face was mere inches away from Merlin's, staring into those unnaturally gold eyes. "My name is Castiel," he said. "I am your father."  
There was silence in the room for a long moment. Slowly, Arthur lowered his sword.  
"Cas," Dean said. He felt an overwhelming need to become wildly drunk, preferably forever. "You, uh." He opened his mouth, closed it, tried again.  
"...Did you just make a Star Wars reference?"


	3. Chapter 3

Arthur tried to keep the sound of pounding blood in his ears to a minimum as Merlin fainted dead away in Sam's arms. Some distant part of him, the part that spoke with his father's voice, chastised him for getting so upset about the fate of a servant. Arthur shoved it aside. Merlin was his only ally in this confusing world, and besides that, he was one of Arthur's only true friends. Arthur refused to let any kind of harm befall him.

Sam eased Merlin's unconscious figure onto one of the red-quilted beds, and Arthur turned to Castiel. "How can _you_ be Merlin's father?" he said coldly. "Merlin already has a father. Had."

Castiel looked up. "Balinor is dead?"

"You knew Balinor?" Arthur asked, wondering who Castiel was, exactly.

Castiel stared at Arthur, unblinking. His eyes were the same deep blue as Merlin's, but they lacked any of Merlin's warmth. "Of course I did. I was the one who arranged for Balinor and Hunith to meet. I watched Cupid carve the sigils in their hearts."

Arthur's mouth thinned. It had meant everything to Merlin to meet his father. He remembered the way Merlin had fallen strangely, stubbornly silent in the middle of their quest to dispatch the Dragon, and even more clearly he recalled the ill-disguised tears when Balinor died. Arthur didn't recognize the depth of the grief they represented at the time. But then the Dragon was gone, and Merlin still did his chores with an awful blank efficiency, and still refused to talk about it, until Arthur finally pushed him hard enough to let all the messy secrets spill out.

"Merlin thought his father was dead," he told Castiel. Anger bubbled in the pit of his stomach, and he took a step forward. "He spent his whole life waiting to meet the man, and then when he finally did, it was ripped away from him less than a week later. You've never spoken to him before; he has no idea who you are. And yet you say _you're_ his father?" With every fiber of princely disdain in his body, Arthur sneered in Castiel's face. "How dare you."

Castiel didn't even blink. "It was necessary," he said. "The warlock had to be conceived by an angel to grant him the necessary power. He will need it." His eyes narrowed by the smallest fraction. "You will need it."

"I don't need _anything_ from–" Arthur began. Sam placed a large hand on his shoulder.

"There's nothing we can do about it now." Arthur shook him off, but he noticed that Sam, too, was looking at Castiel with something like disapproval on his face. "Merlin will be okay. Right, Cas?"

Castiel looked at the figure on the bed. "He had not yet recovered from his journey when his magic reacted to my presence. The combination overwhelmed him."

"Is this like that time you fainted after we got back from the seventies?" Dean said. He was still leaning against the bathroom door, away from the rest of them. Arthur tried to make sense of the question, but he failed to see how a journey from Seventies, wherever that was, related to Merlin collapsing in pain.

"No," said Castiel. "I'm an angel. Merlin is not." Then, looking at Arthur, he added, "He is not permanently damaged."

"Can you wake him up?" Sam asked after a moment, in the ginger tone of voice Arthur remembered from the weeks after his injury from the Questing Beast finally began to heal.

"No," said Castiel, and with barely a brush of wind, he disappeared.

Dean snorted. "Cas saying a proper goodbye would probably bring on the apocalypse."

"You're not funny, Dean," said Sam.

Arthur paced to the window and looked out at the unfamiliar landscape. He was too tired for this, too confused, too out of his element. He wanted to go back to Camelot. He wanted to go _home_. But wallowing in self-pity would do nothing for him, so he pressed himself back into the familiar mold of Prince and turned around.

"We need to do something," he said. "Merlin and I don't belong here."

"You got any ideas, I'm all ears." Dean wasn't looking at Arthur– instead, his eyes followed Sam's progress toward the bed where Merlin lay in a heap. Something twisted in Arthur's ribs when he saw how gently Sam checked under Merlin's eyelids and moved his arms to a more comfortable position.

"We can't _stay_ here," said Arthur, louder than he'd meant to. "Camelot needs us." He took a few steps toward Dean, clenching his empty sword hand. "You must be able to do something. Call a sorcerer, or get us horses, if there's no other way. Send us home."

"Back off, princess," Dean snapped. "I want you gone as much as you do, but it's not that easy. Cas lost his mojo, and no one else with that kinda power seems keen on doing us favors."

"I don't like the sound of what he said about Chuck, either," Sam said, rejoining them. He met Arthur's eyes, then looked back at Merlin. "Sorry, Arthur, but you're a long way from home. Looks like you're stuck here for a while."

"And you know what that means, Sammy," said Dean, clapping his brother on the shoulder. "Your favorite thing!"

"You'd better not be thinking of making me do it all myself," Sam said. "It'll go much faster with two of us."

"Please, you know the Boston Public Library gets you all hot and bothered," said Dean, but Arthur interrupted.

"What are you talking about?"

Simultaneously– Dean gleeful, Sam exasperated– they said, "Research."

"Sam here's gonna go have some i_ntimate personal time_ with the library." Dean waggled his eyebrows, then walked over to the greenish-brown bag near the door and pulled out a flat black rectangle. "Me, I'm gonna see just how fast this hotel wireless is."

"You're not coming?" asked Sam.

Dean shrugged and gestured in the direction of the bed where Merlin was sprawled, mouth open and eyes shut. "Someone's gotta stay here. Don't want him burning the place down in his sleep, or anything. Or him." He nodded at Arthur.

"I don't need watching," Arthur said, though he admitted that Merlin starting a magical fire in his sleep would be utterly typical.

Sam frowned and looked at Merlin again. "Maybe I should stay."

"You're the one with the patience for books, Sammy," said Dean. His eyes flicked toward Merlin too, his grin a little too tight to be genuine. "And I've got the babysitting experience."

"Like you won't be surfing porn the minute I leave," Sam retorted, but he sighed and headed for the door, carefully stepping over some salt spilled in a line on the floor. "I should be back in a couple hours."

"Bring dinner," Dean called after him. The door closed.

***

The streets of Boston were pleasantly warm, and Sam let out a sigh of relief to be in the open air. If he'd been asked yesterday, he would have begged to have Merlin and Arthur of Camelot in his hotel room, but the reality of their presence only added to the mess of uncertainty surrounding this case. Tension coiled between his shoulder blades, settling like an old friend.

There was something suspicious about the entire situation. Chuck had been very specific about the details of their location without ever telling them _what_ was going to happen. And then that hotel, the one Dean would never have wasted money on because it was the kind "run by douchbags," turned out to be right across the street from a prince and a wizard pulled out of their own time. Sam started scrolling through his contacts, past Caleb and Castiel, right above Dean, to Chuck's home number. He had spent too long listening to angels to believe in coincidence.

Speaking of angels, Sam thought as Chuck's answering machine beeped, Castiel had quite a bit of explaining to do when he came back. "Hey, Chuck, this is Sam," he said. "We ran into a little trouble in Boston. Call me when you get this." He ended the call, uneasy. Chuck didn't seem the type to leave the house much. What if something had happened to him?

Sam made his way to the corner of the street, waiting impatiently for the light to turn, when something fluttered in the wind and caught his eye. The untucked shirttail belonged to a man walking down the other side of the street, a man whose scrubby beard and rectangular glasses looked very familiar. Sam waded through a small group of people on the sidewalk and followed him.

After a block or so, Chuck (if it was, in fact, Chuck, and not some other mousy unwashed man), stopped in front of a tall beige building with no windows and pushed open the red door. Music pulsed through the air, a swell of noise as Chuck disappeared that quieted to a faint thumping when the door closed. Sam read the name above the door– Ozone– which meant nothing to him. But if Chuck was in there, Sam would go too.

He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. The inside of Ozone was small and dark, adorned with purple neon lights outlining the walls. He could see a bar across the room, but his line of sight was interrupted by a few raised platforms scattered around the floor, where people wearing very little clothing swayed to the heavily synthesized jazz. It was the sort of place Dean would go– except, Sam realized with a sinking feeling, for how all the strippers were men.

Sam shook his hair in front of his face and hunched his shoulders, steadfastly ignoring the pale body twisting closest to him. There weren't many patrons in the club, given that it wasn't yet four in the afternoon, so it didn't take long for him to find Chuck again, perched on a stool at the bar. Sam clenched his jaw and crossed the room in a few quick strides. While he and Dean had been panicking about their mythical companions, the author of his life was sitting in a strip bar, sipping a rum and coke.

"Chuck."

Chuck spun around on his stool, sloshing the dark liquid onto his already-stained shirt. His eyes were large behind his black framed glasses.

"Sam!" he said. "You...are here!"

Sam plopped down onto the stool beside him. Chuck watched uncomfortably as Sam ordered a beer, and pretended not to look at the tall, tanned figure undulating nearest them. The bartender slid Sam's beer across the counter. Sam took a long pull, the cold condensation soothing against his too-warm palm. Chuck adjusted his glasses.

"Look, I'm not– this isn't–"

"It's really none of my business,"Sam said quickly. He was trying very hard not to think about the implications of this venue, but he could tell the unwanted images would be killing his sex drive for weeks. "I just need more information. About why Dean and I are here."

Chuck ordered another drink, his leg bouncing up and down, brown hair sticking up in all directions. The bags under his eyes testified to a lack of sleep, and sitting this close to him, Sam noted that the prophet didn't smell his best, either. He wondered what was going on that would make Chuck look like he was on the ugly side of a six day bender.

"I suppose you know about Arthur and Merlin?" Sam prompted. "Cas knew where we were because you'd written about them." He leaned forward. "Chuck, what's going on? Why are they here?"

"I didn't know it was gonna actually _happen_," Chuck said, clutching a fresh drink in front of his chest. "No one sat down and explained the rules to me, how was I supposed to know? I don't get out much, you know, what with the visions and the angels and my own freaking characters banging down my door. It was just a bit of fun, to relax! I'm only human!"

"Hey, easy. Slow down." Sam called on his most soothing voice, the one he used for talking to jittery civilians. "What happened? We can try to fix it."

"You can't! I tried!" Chuck told him, shaking his head forcibly. "I tried, but then Merlin collapsed and I don't know if he'll wake up!"

A cold dread settled over Sam. He gripped Chuck's forearm and leaned in close. "What. Did. You. Do?" he asked, voice low and menacing.

Chuck downed the rest of his drink in one and glanced guiltily behind him. He wouldn't meet Sam's eyes.

"I wrote fanfic."


End file.
